


Weapon X

by Lil_Lola_Blue



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Watchmen - All Media Types, X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Avengers - Freeform, Batman - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Multi, POV Original Female Character, Watchmen - Freeform, marvel/dc crossover - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:44:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8018083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lil_Lola_Blue/pseuds/Lil_Lola_Blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contrary to what the comics tell you, Logan didn’t have a clone. After more than a hundred years of mostly estranged marriage, he and Kayla Silver Fox had a daughter. This is their story, the true story of Jim Howlett, his daughter Rory and everything you thought you knew about the Watchmen, The Avengers, the X Men and Batman? You don't know the half of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Weapon X becomes a man again, thanks to his daughter, and that man, Jim Logan, finally gets what he wants. Poor Logan. He doesn't know what he's in for.

** Prelude: British Columbia, 1980 **

“Pa!”

“Don’t you go out there, Rory! That ain’t…that ain’t my boy, and it ain’t your Pa, no more.”

The old man on the wood porch, the old man in the flannel shirt, he tried to stop the little girl in a flannel shirt and overalls.

A tall man, in expensive city clothes, with long blond hair ran after the little girl.

But he stopped, once the little girl got to Weapon X.

She didn’t have any shoes on, but she tripped over the blanket she was carrying, running to him.

Weapon X searched his disjointed memories, and tried to think.

There was something about this place.

He had come to it, by instinct.

The ground smelled familiar.

So did the old man's scent.

And the tall man’s.

Like his own scent, but it wasn’t?

The old man looked tough.

But his voice broke, with emotion.

The tall man was a killer, Weapon X could sense that, but he had fear in his eyes, for the little girl.

The little girl got up, and she ran to him, throwing the blanket over his bare shoulders.

He knelt, crouched freezing and nearly naked, in the snow.

Instinct had led him to this place.

To the old man, the tall man, and the little girl.

She had her little rams around his neck.

“Who did this to you, Pa? You tell me. I’ll get him. I know I’m little, but…”

Pa.

She called me Pa.

She sniffed his hair.

She picked up his bloody paw in her little hands, and sniffed it.

Then she snarled, low, under her breath, deep in her throat.

“I got him in my nose, now. I’m gonna get him.”

She said, laying her finger on the side of her nose.

She looked like…

Him.

But she also looked like…

            …like…

Kayla.

His wife, Kayla.

She left him.

The tall man.

Victor.

His brother.

The old man, grey at the temples, who looked like a mirror to Weapon X.

Black Tom.

His father.

The little girl, with the burgundy-black hair.

When she spoke, she held her little hand in front of his face.

**_snakt!_ **

Three sharp, pearly-white little serrated bone claws came out of her hands.

Weapon X was in awe.

She had claws.

**_SNIKT!_ **

She wasn’t scared of his claws.

She wasn’t scared of him.

“Holy shit, Pa! They put metal on your claws! They’re like knives? Can you cut through cans? Like on TV? Couldja cut a car in half, if you had all day? A whole car?”

Those must be from me, they must have been bone, before they were metal, because this is Kayla's daughter.

My daughter.

Rory.

Victoria Blackfeather Logan Howlett.

“C’n I touch ‘em!”

“No. They’re too sharp.” Weapon X managed to say.

His voice sounded funny.

It had been so long since he had last spoken.

“C’n I sniff?”

“Just don’t get your nose next to the edge.”

She sniffed at one of his claws, carefully.

“They smell like blood. All different blood. Does that mean all the badguys who took you, they’re all dead.”

“Most of ‘em are, Rory, darlin'.”

He sheathed his claws ,and she did too.

“You don’t even wince when you pop your little claws now? Tough, huh? Like your Pa. You got so big. You’re five now, ain’t you?”

“Yeah, Pa. You been gone two whole years.”

Weapon X finally hugged the little girl.

She hugged him back.

Her hair smelled like home-made soap, and snow, and she smelled a little like his own scent, a little like her mother’s, and then there was that special Rory smell, that was just her.

He’d smelled it in his dreams, and woke up, crying and never known way.

Now he did.

“I knew you’d come back, Pa.”

“I’m so sorry, baby. I never meant to leave you. But they took me. But I promise you, until the day I die, I’ll never leave you again. I swear.”

“I b’lieve you, Pa.”

The tall man, Victor, knelt down in the snow and hugged them both.

“You goddam little runt. You always make so much goddam trouble for me. But I’m goddam glad you’re back.”

He broke the embrace, quickly.

He looked upset, like something was wrong, but Weapon X didn’t know what it could be.

“Vic. My brother. Jesus, I’m glad to see you!”

Now Victor smiled.

“You’re not mad at me, Jimmy?”

“Hell no. You’re my brother.”

“That’s good, Jimmy. That’s’ real good. We’ll start from there. Why don’t you come on in the house? Take a bath. Some of your clothes are here, in our Pa’s house.”

“Jimmy. That’s me?” Wepaon X asked.

“Yeah. That’s you. Try to think, Jimmy. See how much you can remember.” Victor encouraged him.

“I’m.. Jim Logan. Tom's son. Victor's brother. Kayla's husband. Eddie’s friend. I was Eddie’s CO. He’s in New York. Kayla…Silverfox. Foxy. She runs a tavern in Dawson City. Since…1905. I am Jim Logan. I was a soldier. An officer. Now I’m a logger. They tried to get me. But I got away, Vic. They tried to wipe my mind. I forget…a lot of shit. But they didn’t get it all. Did they?”

“No, Jimmy. You’re a tough little runt. Like Pa.”

Jim Logan lifted his daughter onto his blanketed shoulders.

“Look at this, Vic.”

SNIKT!

“Holy shit, Jimmy! Are you all metal? Your whole skeleton?”

“Yeah.”

“I hope they didn’t turn _all_ your bones to steel, little brother. For your sake.” Victor joked.

Jimmy laughed.

It was good to laugh again, with his brother.

To be himself.

To be a man.

“Hell, Vic, _that_ was always made of steel. You didn’t understand that, did you Rory?”

“Sure I did, Pa.  I got those jokes. Down at Uncle Vic’s mansion, in Vancouver? He’s got cable. And HBO.”

“You let her watch cable, Vic? And HBO?” Jimmy insisted.

“Hey, Jimmy, I put on Sesame Street and the Muppets for the kid. She likes it. But she likes to get up in the middle of the night and watch Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds movies, too. I turn off the TV, I put her back to bed. She gets up again. Her and Little Jimmy. They love action movies. Go figure, huh?”

           

* * *

 

** Later That Year. **

Jim Logan went down to Howlett, in his truck, to pick his daughter up from school.

Eddie Blake said, another few months, he could be safe, if he wanted to come to the States.

Eddie said him and Rory could stay at his place.

He’d been up for a visit, to Jimmy's homestead, a little further up the mountain from Pa.

There was a girl, sitting on his porch.

A red-haired girl.

He knew her.

She wore a short black leather jacket, and a short shirt, and jeans, her makeup was too heavy, and she was smoking, nervously, with a pile of cigarette butts by her feet.

She wore boots that looked like combat boots, but with platform high heels.

“Who’s that, Pa?”

“I remember her, Rory. She was in the…the place where they kept me. They kept her there, for a little while. She helped me escape. But I…I knew her, before.”

“In the school, Pa? Where you taught before I was born?”

“Yeah, Rory. In the school.”

Logan closed his eyes, grimacing and rubbing the space between them, over the bridge of his nose.

He found himself doing that when he got hit by a brace of memories, and these were particularly bracing.

The red-haired girl, the sight of her, the smell of her made his heart race and he shook his leg to one side, tugged on his belt,  yanked his tee shirt out of his belt and pulled it low, and tugged on his shirt tails.

“Stay in the truck.”

“Why, Pa?”

“Just for a little bit, Rory, darlin.”

“Was she your girl-friend, Pa?”

“Don’t talk about shit like that. That’s’ Pa’s business. And you’re too young to understand. Now you mind me, and stay in the truck, for now. Okay, Rory girl?”

“Okay, Pa. But she looks like a hooker. A cheap one.”

“I know. Don’t say anythin’ about that.”

“Okay, Pa.”

Jimmy got out of the truck.

“I thought you were going home, Jean.”

“What home? Since you left?  My life has been more of a mess. It’s fucked. I’m fucked. You kept me straight, Jimmy. I sent myself to hell, to find you. Whatever you have left in your head? I gave it back to you. I’m not giving you up.”

Logan tried to think.

But his memories were so fuzzy.

“You were only 15. I was crazy about you. I had a job, in the States. I quit it, and came here, to get away from you.”

“Yeah. Back to your wife. That was a bad idea. Except for your little girl, right? Look, Jimmy, I’m twenty, now. I’m finished with high school. And college. I’m going to graduate school, I guess. But…I had some…bad habits.”

“Yeah. I’ll bet. Too many parties. Too many men. Too many drinks. Broke that good guy’s heart. The one from high school. You smell like fear and some guy who was as high as you are. You’re sweating cocaine and vodka. You’re a real smart girl. Why do you do this to yourself?”

“I have problems, okay? Big ones. My mutation is a real bitch. But I could keep things under control, when you were there. After you left? I lost my shit. I lost my mind. I lost my reason to be good. You were always my true North, Jimmy. Can I stay? I can’t go back to New York. I can’t walk away from the crazy. IF I go back? In six months, I’ll be dead.”

“Jean, I got my daughter, here. Her mother doesn’t come around much, and I was gone, too long. And I’m trying to get my life, or somebody’s fucking life, together. I drink beer. There’s no hard liquor in the house. No drugs. Ever. Not around my daughter. No drugs, no men from the bar. Nothing like that.”

“I don’t want any part of any of that craziness, anymore. I want to get straightened out. I can help you, Jimmy. With your daughter. With your life. I’ve made up my mind. I want you. Everything else can go to hell. Do you still love me? Do you remember that?”

“Of course I do, Jeannie. Say it again.”

“I love you, Jim Howlett.”

Logan turned to the truck.

“Rory! Come on out.”

Rory hopped out of the truck.

“Rory, this is Jean Grey. I told you about her. A little.”

“More'n a little, when you get drunk, Pa.”

“Well, she’s gonna stay with us, for awhile. Your Ma, she’s…well, you know what your Ma is like. Jean's not here to replace her. But you’re a girl, Rory, you should have a woman around to, well, so you don’t grow up like a boy. And your old Pa? I get lonely. You’ll…understand when you’re older, Rory.”

“I understand, Pa. Uncle Vic has cable, remember?”

****

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the will they or won't they part was over quickly, wasn't it? Not really. The big question is will they or won't they go home? And what will Scott do when they get there? The next chapter will tell that tale.


	2. Daddy's Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Logan and Jean are reunited with some old friends, we meet a friend of Rory's, we discover that Daken is not Daken at all, and later, in which Logan shows Scott and Tony that insofar as Jean goes, he is the best at what he does, even if what he does is not very nice.

 

** Chapter One: Daddy’s Home **

                                               

** ONE YEAR LATER (Give or take a few months) **

It was an experience Logan still wasn’t used to.

Even through it happened all the time.

People looking at him, like he was supposed to know who they were, like they knew him, when he didn’t remember them.

Logan wasn’t aware of tightening his hand around his daughter’s hand, but Rory didn’t make a sound.

His ginger-haired son, Grey, who was strapped to his chest in some damn fool reverse papoose thing that Jean had bought, he was too little to be stoic.

He cried.

Logan turned to his grown son, Ichi Howlett.

Logan had no trouble remembering him, wither,  but outside of Eddie and his immediate family, everything was still a big blur.

“Ichi, I can’t do this. I don’t belong here.”

“Yes you do, Dad. And even if you don’t, Rory does. And Grey will. I wish they had a place like this in Hawaii when I was a kid. Don’t you wish they had a school like this, up in the Yukon, when you were a kid?”

“British Columbia.”

“See, Dad? You remembered that.”

“I live there.”

“You’re next.”

There was something familiar about the man with the red sunglasses, something that made Logan feel guilty and angry at the same time.

But he remembered the man in the wheelchair.

The main in the wheelchair had helped him.

“Welcome back, Logan. Do you remember us?”

“Kind of. I remember you, Charles. Professor…X. And something about the kid in the sunglasses makes me feel guilty and angry. I don’t know why. I can tell he’s mad at me. Did I do something to you, bub? Because I can’t remember?”

“You don’t know me. Not at all, Logan?”

“All I know is I feel like I want to apologize to you, but I also feel like I wanna punch you in the face.” Logan confessed.

Sunglasses turned to Charles.

“Is he telling the truth, Professor?”

“He is, Scott. Logan doesn’t know you. When Jean ran away, to him? He didn’t remember you.”

“Oh shit! You must be the guy! The kid from high school! The kid who…listen kid, I’m sorry. But you’re young, yet. You’ll find another girl. The way Jean tells it, you had your eye on one. Emily Something. Look, Jean had a lot of problems. When she came to see me, she was in real bad shape. I got her straightened out. No hard liquor. No drugs. New York ain’t for everybody.”

The baby fussed.

“Aw, Christ, this fuckin’ thing Jean bought! Grey hates it!  Ichi, help me get Grey out of this fucking thing!”

“Okay, Dad.”

Swearing, Logan got out of the baby carrying device, and made his undershirt into a sling for Grey, without taking it off, cradling his son in one massive arm.

Grey snuggled against his father’s chest, and went to sleep.

“I, uh, I just came back to the States, and I want to enroll my daughter in this school. My son, too, when he’s older. Rory is six years’ old and she’s in the second grade. She was born on Halloween, in 1975. Her full name is Victoria Blackfeather Logan Howlett.”

As he spoke, without looking, Logan put his hand down, reaching for Rory’s,.

She was about to wander off.

“Stay here, Rory. What the hell you lookin’ at so fierce, little darlin?”

‘That fat kid. In the striped shirt. With the big hat on. He keeps givin me dirty looks! An’ he just gave me the finger! Motherfucker! I’m gonna cut that finger off an’ shove it up his fat ass!”

Jim Creed, his brother’s son, was trying to get away from his Uncle Ichi, too.

“That’s’ enough out of both of you! Quit cussin! An no claws. An’ no fightin inside this house, either. What did I tell you about fighting in the house? And cussin” And claws?”

“I know, Pa. I’m sorry. Can I write my name in the book?”

“No, little darlin’ The guy with the glasses does that. And you had better settle down, Jimmy, or I’ll have to tell your father you couldn’t behave yourself at your school.”

Jim Creed bared his fangs at the fat kid in the striped shirt and turned away from him.

“I’ll be good, Uncle Jimmy. Unless that fat kid pulls somethin’.”

“Hey, how come you wear shades inna house, mister?” Rory asked the man with the red sunglasses.

“Because if I don’t, the lasers I shoot out of my eyes will destroy everything.”

“Wow. That’s’ pretty goddam cool, man.” Rory said.

“Are you kidding me, Rory? I go to school here. There’s nothin’ cool about Mr. Summers.” Her cousin told her.

Logan didn’t correct his daughter’s language.

Or his opinion of Scott Summers.

Apparently, anything short of derivatives of the word “fuck” was acceptable language.

She wore a flannel shirt, overalls, and a little denim jacket.

Scott couldn’t help it, he smiled.

“Chip off the old block, huh, Logan?”

“Yeah, well I’ve tried to put her in dresses. Skirts. Shit like that. If she’s inna house, she takes ‘em off an runs around in her Underoos. If I send her out like that, she comes home all torn up an’ dirty. Comes home that way, anyway. Might as well put Daddty’s Little Girl in clothes good for that.”

“You can enroll your son, too, Logan. We have day care.” Professor X told him.

“Yeah? Because I got a job for a company that cleans up after fires an’ demolitions an’ shit, and Jean is teaching at Columbia. Eddie, my, uh, army buddy we’re living with? He makes his own hours, but I can’t ask him to watch my kids, alla time, you know?”

“You let Eddie Blake watch your kids? The Eddie Blake?”

“Hey, Shades. I’ve known Eddie since he was a snot-nosed, mean little punk in a yellow boiler suit! I was his CO, in the last war that meant something. You know what I remember Eddie? Because he’s worth remembering. He raised three of his sisters and brothers, and his daughter turned out alright, and they don’t always see eye-to eye, but she lets her old Da watch his grandson when she’s out walkin’ her beat. Yeah, I trust Eddie with my kids.”

“You don’t like Eddie? I’m not goin to school here.” Rory added.

“Yes you are., Don’t listen to Shades. He’s just a kid. In fact, I think I…”

Logan looked around.

He grasped his forehead, with both hands.

“Are you getting your remembering things headache, Pa? Is this the school where you were a gym teacher?”

“It might be, Rory. Hold onto your brother for your old man. This one is really bad. Ichi…”

Logan almost fell over and his tall, lanky son caught him.

“I got you, Pa. Professor, do you have a chair.”

“I don’t need a fuckin’ chair! I’m not that old. Yet. I’ll be alright, in a minute!:

“You did used to teach here, Logan. You were our combat instructor Also the gym teacher. I haven’t hired a new man for either job. You could live here, with your family. And have a real home, of your own.” Professor X told him.

“One thing at a time, Charles. I just wanna make sure my daughter goes to this school. She’s too wild for her own good. When I was… in the program, my Pa was raising her, and he raised me to be wild. But I remember a stepfather or something who taught me to be civilized/ Rory had Pa and my brother, Vic, all along. That’s’ no good.”

“It’s good for me, Pa. Ichi, hold Gray.”

Rory saw her younger brother safely into the arms of her older brother, and she and her cousin Jim got out of the line and marched up to a boy about ten, who had been giving them dirty looks, pointing at her and punching his fist into his hand.

“You some kinda fag, Bull, you wanna fight my cousin? What are you, stupid? You don’t know she’s a girl?” Jim demanded.

“You look more like a girl than she does?”

“What did you say? What the fuck did you say to me?” Jim Creed blustered, doing the best imitation of his father that he could.

“You wanna go, fat boy? Right fuckin’ now? C’mon, you big fat tub of guts!” Rory snarled.

The fat kid took down his hood.

He had horns like a bull.

Rory assumed a fighting stance.

So did Jim, barning his fangs in a snarl, as the talons on his hands lengthened.

She snarled and two fangs descended from either side of her front teeth, as she popped her sharp little claws.

“Time to bleed, fucko. You ready, Jimmy”

“I was born ready.”

The bugger, older boy snorted, and put his head down, and that was when Logan got hold of both of them, by the backs of their shirts.

He lifted both his daughter and his nephew off the ground, effortlessly, put one protesting child under either ram and carried them back to the registration table.

“See what I mean? Rory! Cut that shit out, right now? What did I tell you? About starting fights. You too, Jimmy!”

“We don’t start fights. We finish them.”

“That’s’ what we were doin, Uncle Jimmy., Finishin.”

“Bullshit!. The kid gives you a dirty look, you give him a dirty look. He says fuck you, you say fuck you, too. But you don’t attack until you are attacked. And never with the claws! Or with fangs! Not all mutants can heal!”

Rory sheathed her weapons, and pointed her finger at the boy with the horns.

“I got your smell in my nose, fucko. You’d better watch your lard ass.”

Jim Creed have him one more snarl.

“Hey! You! Little man! What’s your kid trying to do to my kid?”

The father of the kid with horns actually had horns.

He was about a foot taller than Logan, and angry as, well, an angry bull.

“My kid? What was your kid doin’ tryna pick a fight with a little girl and a little boy, half his age?”

The minotaur man jabbed his finger in the middle of Logan’s chest.

“Look, buddy, I don’t know where your feral ass came from, or what kind of werewolf bitch you had that wild child with, or what your brother must look like if he produced that other thing, but why the fuck don’t you take your pups and go home?”

Logan smacked the mans’ hand away.

“Why don’t you try an’ make me, and I’ll make you into three hundred pounds of hamburger, asshole!”

**SNIKT!**

Meanwhile, Rory, her cousin Jim, and the older boy, who was eight, not ten, had discovered they had a mutual love of Star Wars, comic books and Led Zeppelin, and were involved in trading a Star Wars comic and a Obi Wan Kenobi with no cape and a missing lightsaber for two Led Zeppelin tapes.

They both looked up, saw their fathers about to fight.

“Jimmy, go get Grey.”

“Okay.” Jim Creed agreed.

Jim got his baby cousin from his older cousin and went back to the deal.

Scott Summers broke up the fight between Logan and the minotaur man.

He began lecturing Logan about his behavior.

“Now I remember you, Scooter! I usedta be your teacher, kid. You ain’t tellin’ me what to do. Come on, pal, let’s settle this outside.”

“What’s his problem? Is he a fag, or somethin’?” the man with horns and a Yankees t-shirt asked Logan.

“No. He’s just a Boy Scout. Shit, willya lookit that? Our kids are gettin’ along, now. See/”

“Really? Nobody likes Bull. He ain’t got friends.”

“Yeah, well my daughter and my nephew ain’t too popular either. You wanna forget about it? For the kids sakes?”

“Yeah, fuck it. Besides,  Mr. Boy Scour ruined the mood. Get your new friends’ phone numbers, Bull, and then its’ time to go. We gotta pick your Mom up from woik.”

A few minutes later, the two horned mutants left.

“This is pretty cool, Pop. Now I got two friends. Liv, and my new friend Bull. He even likes Jimmy.”

“The kid’s name is Bull?”

“No. his name’s Francis. But they call him Bull. He says his Dad always gets into fights. But he heals up good, too.”

“Can you hurry it up, in front, Logan? I have to work, tonight.”

Logan turned around.

He peered at the guy at the end of the line, holding a little red-haired girl by the hand.

Bruce Wayne.

The little girl was Rory’s best friend, Liv Napier.

Wayne’s stepdaughter.

Logan suddenly recalled that Bruce Wayne was Batman, not batman’s financier, but he didn’t say anything.

“Take the night off, Wayne. You can afford it.”

“Other people can’t.”

“I don’t wanna go here if they don’t like Eddie, either!” Liv announced.

She spent a lot of time with her friend, Rory Howlett, and Jack Napier give Eddie Blake his first job, driving truck for Axis Chemicals, when he was fourteen.

“Liv, you are going to this school and that’s final. Besides, Cyclops isn’t the boss, here…”

Logan rubbed the back of his head with his hand.

“Anyway, like I was sayin, Professor, the construction crew job, it’s a real bitch. No union. No benefits. Some days we work eight, ten hours. No overtime pay unless we work 12 hours. Other days? We don’t work at all. Sometimes I work days, sometimes nights. It’s not regular. Its’ no good for the kids.”

“Your job here was a union job. With benefits. We have left your rooms as they were. And Jean’s. There’s plenty of room for your children, too. Especially in your rooms. You have one room you never even used. I can bring in some bunk-beds, for when Grey gets a little older and since your rooms are off of the gym, we can build another room onto your quarters, when he’s too old to room with his sister. ” Charles Xavier reminded Logan.

“What about this thing with Jean? Jesus, now that I remember you, Cyke… I…hey, she came after me. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Take the job, Logan. You need help. And I need my combat instructor. My best field man. My most experience fighter and leader. This is your home. And it’s Jean’s home. And your kids need a proper home. A safe place to grow up. We’ll all just have to sit down like rational adults and figure something out.”

“I can do that. Me and my brother, we were once kinda married to the same woman. But I can’t move in. Yet. Jean won’t come back here. She won’t. Scott, you tell me what you want me to do. I won’t even try to convince her.”

Scott Summers sighed.

“Logan, you were tortured for years and you lost your memory. And Jean doesn’t tell you the whole truth? I think I’m mad at her. Not you. You should both just come home.”

Charles Xavier smiled at Scott Summers.

Proudly.

“I think those are some excellent ideas you two have. As for Jean? I will help you get her back. Jean needs to be here, in a safe place, as much, if not more, than any of us do.”

* * *

 

                                                                        ***

 “Jean.”

Just like that, there he was.

Jean had Grey in her arms, and she was telling Rory not to pick things up from the ground in the train station, and there was Charles.

She had the urge to run, but he was smiling at her.

“You look well. Very well. And I see you’ve got your hands full with Logan’s children.”

“My children, Charles. I’m Rory's stepmother. And Grey is our son. Jimmy and I.”

“I see. I heard you were all living in Colonel Blake's penthouse. I know he and Logan are old friends. But don’t you think it would be better for you both, back at the Institute? I have spoken to Colonel Blake. He thinks it’s a good idea. Especially for the children. He has so many enemies.”

_SNAKT!_

“I’m ready for any enemy of Eddie’s. Or Pa's. I may be little. But I can take em. One way? Or the other.”

“Really? I see the one way. What’s the other?”

“But you know that, Professor.”

“Show me. Maybe I don’t.”

The little girl made a motion in the middle of her forehead.

Like she was opening a third eye.

She took Professor  X's hand, and put it on her forehead.

“See things the way I see them.”

And the little girl showed him the living, breathing, universe.

He saw infinity.

It saw him.

“Very impressive. We are going to have to talk more about this. But how is it the other way?”

“I can take away people’s troubles. Or give them trouble. Sometimes? I can make them do things. Like my Ma can.”

“Jean, I think Rory should be at the Institute. To finally have a real home. And Logan needs my help.”

“No, Charles. I’m happy. Jimmy is happy. He’s working on a road crew, and I have a position at NYU. We are living normal lives. Rory has a friend she plays with. Liv Napier, Bruce Wayne’s stepdaughter. They go to school together. Jimmy's brother lives in Eddie’s building, too. He has his brother, his best friend, and he has me. And we just had a baby. That’s good enough, Charles. It was nice to see…Rory! Don’t eat that! Put it back in the garbage!”

“Why? Old Pa taught me about how mutants like us, we gotta live off what we hunt. Or find. Or forage. Nothing’s gonna kill us, he said. And I’m hungry.”

Jean went to wrest the trash away from Rory.

And then?

Scott was there.

When she saw him, gain, she knew how much she missed him.

And she also knew her life was going to be less normal, and more complicated than even she had expected.

Scott took the garbage from Rory, and threw it away.

“Then ask your step-mom to take you to get a Happy Meal. Garbage is dirty, kiddo. Your grandfather was talking about hunting and foraging in the forest. Not in New York. On the subway.”

“Sorry, Mr. Summers.”

“Scott? How do you know Rory?”

“I teach History, Civics and Social Studies at the private school she goes to. And we need our gym and combat teacher back.”

 Jean grabbed Rory and dragged her across the platform.

Grey began to wail.

Jean was wearing high heels, and she tripped.

Grey fell from her arms.

Rory caught him.

“Are you okay, Jean? Are you cryin?”

“Yes, Rory. I’m crying.”

Scott pulled her to her feet.

“Rory, you had better let me hold Grey.” Professor X suggested.

“Okay, Professor.”

“Are you alright, Jean?” Scott asked her.

“I think I twisted my ankle.”

“Then I think you need to come home and get checked out at to the Infirmary.”

* * *

 

 

 **X: Institute 1987**          

It was a Friday night, so Logan let Rory and Grey stay up until the movie was over.

Then he got them both settled in their bunkbeds, and went back to the common room.

Scott was looking at his watch.

Logan handed him a beer.

“She’s not coming home tonight, Cyke. It ain’t happenin’. Besides, it’s Friday. It’s Jean’s day off.”

“Day off! Day off, my ass! She needs a day with you! She needs a day off! It doesn’t make me feel too special. And I’m supposed to marry this woman?”

The much older man laughed into his beer.

 “Cyke, I been married since I was fifteen years old. Over a century, now. And my wife? Foxy takes years off from me. It’s been my experience, with women, that if you take some time off from each other? If you ain’t all over each other ,all the time, livin’ cheek by jowl, every minute? You’ll stay together, longer. And things change once you marry a woman. Especially a woman like Jean. You know, despite what you think, kid, they didn’t invent women with brains and balls in 1963. That’s the kind of woman you marry, Cyke. But keepin’ her? Think about it before you get married. It ain’t like it used to be. You don’t hafta get married to a woman, anymore, just to live with her. The best way to lose a woman like Jean is to try and hold onto her too tight. Marry her and she’ll feel the ball and chain, real keen. She’ll want two days off, then.”

 “Did Kayla ever ask you for a divorce?”

“Of course not! She loves me. She loves me even more when I give her a lot of room to breathe. You know what we used to fight over. Indian shit. Shit I didn’t know about, not bein’ an Indian..”

“What?”

“I’m pretty foggy on it, Cyke. But the Old Man, he was on the lam, for something they say he did. My brother had a good thing going, in Montana. Some kind of Wild Bill, Wyatt Earp kinda shit. He hadda come back and take care of me. Vic was a grown man in his twenties when I was 12 or 13, he says.  Then, here I am, 15 and I marry a 15 year old Indian girl. Bring her into the picture. Foxy wasn’t much to look at when she was 15. But by the time she was 19 or 20? Vic was doin’ more than lookin’. She didn’t see nothin’ wring with it. She was my wife and Vic was my brother. Vic and I got into it, he says. Foxy almost ended up dead. For what? What the fuck was I sore about? Vic says I lost my home, my wife, my brother, twenty years I was gone. Because of what?  I don’t wanna make the same mistake here, Scott. Or, what I mean is, I don’t want you to make it. We’re on the same team. That’s close enough to bein’ brothers. Let’s not fight over the woman who wants us both, and ain’t gonna have either of us if one drives the other away.”

“I’m not so mad about you, Logan. Not anymore. It’s that asshole Tony Stark! She’s been running around with him since he was like, 15! You missed most of that!  I mean she’s five goddamn years older’n he is. You know what, though? When he was 15 he didn’t look like I did when I was 15. He looked like he was thirty-five, the son of a bitch!”

“Are you cussin’, Scott?”

“I am cursing, Logan! Yes, I am! That smug, snarky, silver-spoon, trust-fund, coked-up goddam little punk! Half of the bad habits Jean ever had, she learned from him. Now, she says, she’s trying to get him to straighten out. Yeah, I think I know what she’s straightening out on him. What does she see in him?”

            “Who? Tony Stark? What about everything, Cyke?  You may outclass me, but Tony fucking Stark outclasses everybody. He’s rich. He’s smart. He looks like a fucking old time movie star. I wouldn’t worry about it. They may have gone to college together but Stark is still just a kid. What is he 21? 22? The thing about Jean is, I love her, and you love her, but she’s The Great and Powerful Miss Jean Grey. Stark is not the kinda guy to put up with that bullshit. Not after he does some growing the fuck up.”

            “Who’s it going to be, after him, though?”

            “Me.”

“You?”

“Me. I’m puttin’ my foot down, Scooter.  I’ll take her out every Friday. Fuck it. You know what? You and me, Cyke? We ain’t puttin’ up with any more of this.”

            Scott took a long drink.

            “That was a dirty trick, Logan. How she got you. I mean I love Grey like I really was his Uncle Scott. And you’re a great Dad. But it was a dirty trick.”

            Logan laughed, sarcastically, around his beer.

            “I’m an old-fashioned guy. Jean got me the old-fashioned way. A pretty girl like her, goin’ for a mean, ugly old sunnuvabitch like me. I tried to do the right thing. And run. I remember that. She had her eye on me since she was 15.”

            “But as soon as she found out your memory went? BANG! There she was.”

            “On my doorstep. Tellin’ me how she needed me. Which she did. And God knows, I needed her. All I could remember was how much. And she didn’t tell me the whole truth about what had gone before. Yeah, and pregnant in, what, two months? A woman who had been fuckin’ since she was 13?  All the sudden, she forgot a pill. The pharmacy was too far away. It took an hour or so to drive to Howlett. They got a goddamn pharmacy, right in town. Of course, it’s not like I was bein’ careful. An old man like me, throwin’ caution to the wind! Yeah, she got me. Not that I’m complainin’. Grey’s a good kid. And Jean’s good mother. You’ll see, Scott. When you and her have a little Cyclops of your own. No, I ain’t complainin’ about Jean.”

Logan took a drink, looked at the clock on the VCR, and scolwed.

            “Much.”          

            “When she gets mad at you, does she put you down and make me sound like I’m the greatest?”

            “Of course she does. I guess when she talks about me, she complains about my socks. How smelly they are. And my habit of throwin’ beer cans on the floor. How much she hates hockey. Stinky cigars. Ashes all over the place. Scott doesn’t even smoke.”

            “Yeah, well, you’re a real man. That’s what I hear.”

            “Stinky feet and all.” Logan laughed.

            Scott laughed, too.

            “What did she see in you?”

            “I ask myself that, all the time, Cyke. It’s not like I’m the best lookin’ guy in the world. Far from it. But women seem to like me. Always have. You met my wife. She’s beautiful.”

            Logan took another pull on his beer.

“Of course, if I get used to a woman, which I do, bein’ an old-fashioned guy, they usually end up dead. And it ain;t always Vic, my asshole brother But Jean, she’s too tough to die.  I dunno, Cyke. I was her teacher. It was  a time when things were changin’. And me, I was a cowboy, an’ a soldier an’ a lumberjack. All that crazy macho shit. And Jean was a really confused, fucked-up kid. I think she saw some kind of old time safety and security in me, Like there ain’t much of in the world, these days. I think she feels safe with me. I think she figured if she had a baby with me, and the kid had my blood, he would be safe. Damn near indestructible. So she wouldn’t have to go through what a lot of our people to. To watch your kid die. To watch somebody you love die. I think that’s a big part of what me an’ Jean see in each other.”

Cyclops thought about that.

“You know, Logan, you’re smarter than you let on.”

“That’s why I’m still alive.”

The TV went off the air.

“Fuck it. That’s’ it. I’m done with this shit. She thinks I’m a real man?  I’ll fuckin’ show the Great and Powerful Miss Jean Grey the old-fashioned way that I goddam well am! Hey, Cyke,  how many beers you think you are away from goin’ to Tony Stark’s penthouse, breakin’ the door in an raisin’ hell? I can ask Elf to watch the kids.”

“Just let me finish this beer, and I’m ready to go. We should put our costumes on, though. Make it official.”

“Good idea.” Logan agreed.

                                                            ***

Logan jimmied the lock on the penthouse elevator with the tip of his claw.

When the elevator door opened, they found Tony Stark, in a sleeping bag, with a pizza on his chest, watching a portable TV sitting on top of a case of Newcastle Brown Ale.

Tuned to a Star Trek rerun.

            “Oh. It’s you guys. Fuck, am I glad to see you! Here’s my keys. You go get her. I’m staying right here in the fucking elevator. Where it’s safe.” He told them.

            “What did you do, kid?” Logan asked.

            Tony shrugged.

            “Who the fuck knows? I think it was the part where I told her that we would always be friends, but, since I had my heart attack and came down from blow heaven? I can’t sleep with a woman who has, like, two husbands. And a son with one of them. It’s weird. It’s too much bullshit. It’s probably wrong on so many levels. That part, though, its’ not a hundred percent true. The truth is? I can’t take this bullshit. I’m going to have another heart attack. I have to get out of this city. It’s killing me.”

            “Your stepfather, Flynn, he still got that boat?”

            “Ship, Jimmy.”

            Howard.

            Howard always called him Jimmy.

            Jean still called him Jimmy.

            So did Vic, and Eddie.

            Logan usually corrected everybody else, but the kid looked so miserable, he let it go.

            “Whatever. Get on a plane, fly to wherever he’s docked and get the fuck out.”

            “That’s what Flynn told me.”

            “Do it, kid. You stay in the elevator, Cyke. I’ll get Jean.”

                                                            ***

            Logan was in the apartment so long that Cyclops was sitting with Tony, watching TV.

            “…I agree with you, Tony. It would have bummed me out if Han Solo died. I’m glad that didn’t happen. But those teddy bears? What was that?”

            “After _Empire_? It was bullshit. And Lucas ruined Vader, too.”

            Suddenly the elevator doors opened.

            Logan had Jean over his shoulder.

            “Put me down, Jimmy! James John Logan Howlett, you put me down, right fucking now!”

            “Soon as we get to the car, darlin.”

            Calmly, Logan pushed the button for the ground floor,

            Telepathy wasn’t working on Logan.

            Neither was brute force.

            Tony and Scott were both in awe as Logan carried Jean out the door, her overnight bag in his free hand.

            “Howard says Magneto is the most powerful mutant on Earth. Next to Jean Grey. But now I disagree.” Tony said.

            “You should see him fight. I may be team leader, but when it comes to combat? I let Colonel Howlett call the plays. You know, Tony,  you’re actually a pretty cool guy.”

            “So are you, Scott. We should hang out.”

            “We should. When you get back.”

            “I’ll call you.”

            Scott followed Logan out to the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was fun, wasn't it? But the real fun is only just beginning. Tune in to the next chapter, where Rory and Liv will begin their mask careers much earlier in life than most, the joke will be on Adrian Veidt, and we'll just see what Mrs. Howlett, Kayla Silver Fox, thinks about all of this.


End file.
